Ripped off at a bureau de change in central London

sadinlondon

Having just checked the current exchange rates after returning back to our hotel, I was stunned to find out that what I thought would have amounted to 20 pounds more or less in exchange difference, in fact turned out to be about 120 pounds difference. We are fuming that a bureau de change can get away with such extreme rip off rates - it's daytime robbery!

It has completely soured our holiday. We are going back to the bureau tomorrow to ask for our money back but doubt we'll have any luck. Can't find anything on the internet about our rights as consumers in this case. We are basically deeply unhappy with the product we've been sold but I doubt this will be sufficient. We paid in cash by the way and were given a receipt confirming the cruel rip off the transaction has been.

Any advice or suggestions before we return to the bureau de change tomorrow would be greatly appreciated.

Not a happy Friday night

vuvuzela

Did the rate you were given differ from the displayed rate or was there no displayed rate?

Miss_Havisham

can you give us some details, e.g currency, amount and exchange rate they gave you ?

It's a horrible feeling when you realise that someone has cheated you.

Valli

Thing is the chances are the OP was told the rate and accepted it. Only afterwards has the OP realised that the rate offered by the Bureau varied significantly from the exchange rate. And has now decided they were ripped off.
Bureaux de change typically don't offer competitive rates. That's how they make their money! And I would be VERY surprised if they refunded the OP.
I doubt they have broken any law.

shaun_from_Africa

This is fairly common with exchange bureaus, and not only in the UK.
I travel an awful lot due to my work and have come across some of these places that have horendous exchange rates, but provided they give you the advertised rate, you won't have any luck getting any money back from them.

What they tend to do is to draw customers in by having a big advert or banner stating that no commision will be charged so it looks like you will be getting a good deal, but the sign with the actual rate given will be extremely small and hard to see.

It's certainly worth going back and asking to speak to their manager (if they can be found), but I wouldn't hold out too much hope of a positive outcome unless there has been an actual mistake made with the calculations.

Looksguywalker

sadinlondon wrote: »

Having just checked the current exchange rates after returning back to our hotel, I was stunned to find out that what I thought would have amounted to 20 pounds more or less in exchange difference, in fact turned out to be about 120 pounds difference. We are fuming that a bureau de change can get away with such extreme rip off rates - it's daytime robbery!

It has completely soured our holiday. We are going back to the bureau tomorrow to ask for our money back but doubt we'll have any luck. Can't find anything on the internet about our rights as consumers in this case. We are basically deeply unhappy with the product we've been sold but I doubt this will be sufficient. We paid in cash by the way and were given a receipt confirming the cruel rip off the transaction has been.

Any advice or suggestions before we return to the bureau de change tomorrow would be greatly appreciated.

Not a happy Friday night

Did you get the rate advertised/agreed to?

sadinlondon

Thank you everyone for the replies. We did get the advertised rate & got charged a 5% commission ( which we thought was the only fee we were incurring so to speak). In reality the exchange rates actually differed so much that we were ripped off by 100 quid more. We would have basically got 100 pounds more at the post office and probably not been charged commission.

We will let you know whether we have any joy getting the money back.

Thanks again for everyone's advice.

PlutoinCapricorn

I always used Marks & Spencers and the Post Office.

arcon5

So you knew their Rates and their commission fee before purchasing and now you've shopped around decided you dont like it.

Sorry op but you need to shop around BEFORE making a purchase. You was not ripped off by them at all - you openly chose to use their service at said price!! They've done nothing wrong here

arcon5

This reminds me of a recent visit to a car boot. We purchased a hotdog about 5 minutes in at the eye watering price of £2.50.. about an hour later as we got deeper in to car boot we saw 2 vans selling them for 40% off the price (£1) :eek:


Although we didn't dare return to the original one and demand the difference back... but we did have a second hot dog

halibut2209

Which one tasted better?